Page accused of anti-Muslim posts to be reported to Facebook, Gardaí

The Immigrant Council of Ireland has called on the Gardaí to investigate a Facebook page accused of being anti-Muslim.

The 'Irish voice' which was set up last November now has nearly 1,000 likes.

However members of the public have become concerned since images of women in burqas appeared on the site.

One photo was accompanied by several comments including one saying: "Check out the future Irish school uniform."

An administrator of the page has responded to criticism by saying: "What is it with Ireland as we seem to have bypassed any rational thinking and produced a population of late teens to mid 20's of young people who are opinionated all on the side of the Bleeding hearts Brigade…

"It used to be the clever kids went to collage but wow how this has changed and it seems that they let the ones that will easily be brainwashed into the sheep they want. (sic)"

An administrator of the page also warned that only comments in Irish or English would be accepted, with comments in all other languages deleted, and defended that decision by saying comments had to be moderated and therefore understood.

Extract:

"I have Been attacked by a few stupid people for saying that this page only excepts comments in English and Irish . The Reason for only excepting these 2 languages is because they are the main languages of Ireland and this page is called Irish voice and not Indian voice or Brazilian voice or any other language , this is NOT Racist or Discrimination or Bigotry as has been thrown at me , I will welcome anyone onto the page who wants an adult conversation and the posts i put up are to cause a reaction to see what Irish people think on different subjects and to give Irish people a place to vent their true opinions and in turn the Foreign followers will learn something about the Irish and Ireland .

"I pay money to Facebook to advertise the page and i think this does give me the right to say what languages i want spoken on the page , I have to monitor every comment and how can I do that if i can not understand the language the comment is in ?

I speak English and a very little Irish ( unfortunately not much Irish but i will learn by reading comments on here ) ."(sic)

Some 12% of racist incidents reported here last year were internet-related.

Spokesperson for the ICI Jerry O'Connor said the council was taking the matter seriously.

"We were contacted by very concerned members of the public…We will now be asking the gardaí to investigate the contents of the page and to see if it is in violation of our incitement to hatred laws,

Independent TD Mattie McGrath has been accused of misogyny after saying that the abortion debate isn't over until the fat lady sings, before quipping "and I'm not talking about the chairperson of the Committee or anyone like that".